Summary
Files and folders turned into shortcuts! What should we do? Now, we can show hidden files or remove shortcut virus. If they cannot help, we can try using MiniTool Photo Recovery to recover lost photo or video files infected by shortcut virus from SD card, USB drive, or other storage devices.

Problem: SD Card Files and Folders Become Shortcuts

OH, no…. Files and folders turned into shortcuts? You connect your SD card to computer, but you cannot access those photos and videos and only to find that all the pictures as well as videos turned into shortcuts (with a few KBs in size the real size could be MBs or GBs). Now, what should you do? Is it possible to convert shortcut file to original file?

Generally speaking, files and folders become shortcuts is a common issue, and many users have encountered this problem. For instance, let's see a true example from answers.microsoft.com.

I am freaking out because my folders became shortcuts in my external HD and to my flash drive. The original files are hidden and they become shortcuts. Furthermore, I often encounter an error message with "maoyoad.exe" & "maoyoadx.exe". I already submitted these files to MMPC and still waiting for definition files.

Theoretically, if files and folders in SD card, USB drive or other storage device become shortcuts and files have gone missing, your device has probably infected with some viruses or malware! In this case, you cannot access your previous pictures and videos. As a matter of fact, however, the virus just makes them hidden instead of deleting them permanently. Therefore, if you suddenly find your folders turned into shortcuts, don't worry and you still have a chance to fix folders that have become shortcuts in memory card or USB drive within a few steps. However, how to recover files after virus attack with ease?

Top Recommendation: When it comes to talking about the SD card folders turned into shortcuts issue, we want to share another common problem – SD card not showing files in PC. Here, you can read our previous post How Do I Solve - Photos on SD Card Not Showing on Computer to find more information.

Now, in today's post, we're going to show you how to fix folders turned into shortcuts in Windows 7/8/10.

Method 1. Show Hidden Files to Convert Shortcut File to Original File

If your pictures or videos in SD card or USB drive become hidden or shortcuts, you can try changing the settings in file explorer options to recover hidden files and folders by following the steps below.

If you still cannot see your needed photos or videos after trying this method, keep reading to find other solutions on how to fix folders turned into shortcuts.

Method 2. Recover Files after Virus Attack by Using CMD

No doubt, the chkdsk command prompt is a good choice for you when it comes to fixing folders turned into shortcuts. Now, try the following steps to convert shortcut file to original file on your external hard disk, USB drive, memory card or other storage devices.

Step 1. Connect your SD card or USB drive to computer.
Step 2. Go to the start menu, type in "cmd" in a search bar and press OK button to continue.
Step 3. Then, right-click Command Prompt and choose Run as administrator, and click Yes button in the pop-up window.

Important note: Don't forget to replace "f" if the drive letter is different.

Step 5. Type "exit" command and press Enter button.

Finally, you can check your files on the memory card or USB drive. If the files and folders become shortcuts issue still exists, try method 3.

Method 3: Download and Run Anti-virus Scan Program to Kill Virus

As we know, the root cause of shortcut files is malware. Therefore, we can try removing malware to convert shortcut file to original file. However, if you still cannot access your pictures and videos after trying this solution, you can try the last method: use a piece of professional third-party software to recover files infected by shortcut virus from memory card.

If the above solutions cannot help you, you can recover files and then format this drive to fix the folders become shortcuts issue.

Step 1. Recover Files after Virus Attack with Ease

When it comes to SD card data recovery, some users might be wondering:
"How to effectively and safely recover files infected by shortcut virus?"

To recover lost photos as well as videos from SD card or USB drive after virus attack, you can try using MiniTool Photo Recovery.

Excellent performance: It not only can recover photos and videos from memory card, but also can recover files from USB drive, computer hard drive and other storage devices. More importantly, it is able to directly recover photos from digital camera. And, it can help to recover data from all data loss situations, such as mistaken deletion, formatting, virus attack, system crash, raw error and more.

High security: It is a read-only tool. Thus, it can help to recover lost files from memory card without damaging the original data.

Simple operations: This simple tool offers wizard-like interfaces as well as simple operations. Thus, even a new user can easily recover lost pictures from memory card without any difficulty.

Next, let's see the detailed steps on how to fix folders turned into shortcuts.

NOTE: Before recovering files infected by shortcut virus from memory card, you need to download MiniTool Photo Recovery from its official website, and then install it on computer according to prompts.

Step 3. Select the memory card or USB drive, and then click Scan button at the lower right corner.

NOTE: In this window, if you only want to recover some needed files, the Setting feature can help you. For instance, if you only want to recover JPG, PNG, CRW, and CR2 pictures, you can choose JPEG Camera File (*.jpg), JPEG Graphics file (*.jpg), Canon CRW File (*.crw), and Cancon CR2 File (*.cr2), as shown below.

Step 4. Preview files, check needed files, click Save button, and click Browse button to select a suitable place to store them. It is recommended to store selected files on another drive. Otherwise, the lost/deleted data could be overwritten.

Tip: Sometimes, some users might receive an error message that reads "You have reached the file saving limit for the selected files" while saving files, as shown below.

This is because that the free edition of MiniTool Photo Recovery can only recover 200mb files for free. If you want to recover more files, you need to choose Personal or advanced editions. If you don't know which license to choose, you can find answers from this page: Welcome to MiniTool Photo Recovery 3.0!

If you decide to get the personal or more advanced edition, you don't need to close the scan result interface of free MiniTool Photo Recovery. Then, you can click on Register Now button after receiving the license key MiniTool Solution Ltd. sends to you, then copy & paste the license to the text box in the pop-out window and click on Register button to enter the advanced edition immediately. After that, you are able to directly save needed photos without scanning again.

After all operations are done, you have recovered SD card files infected by shortcut virus without damaging the original data.

Tips: In addition to MiniTool Photo Recovery, here I want to share another simple data recovery software with all of you to help you recover files infected by shortcut virus. MiniTool Power Data Recovery, a professional and excellent data recovery software developed by MiniTool Solution Ltd., offers Digital Media Recovery feature to help users effectively and quickly recover lost videos and photos.

Want to know more details about how to fix folders turned into shortcuts in Windows 7/8/10?

The steps are:

First, download free MiniTool Power Data Recovery, and then install it on computer.

Second, connect your SD card or USB drive to PC.

Third, launch MiniTool Power Data Recovery, and then click on Digital Media Recovery. This module could help you recover image, music and video files from various digital media storage devices, such as flash drive, mp3 player, digital camera, hard drive and all types of flash cards.

From the above interface, we can see this professional data recovery tool contains 5 different data recovery modules to deal with different data loss scenarios. For instance, it can recover data from formatted USB.

Now, select the device from which you want to recover data, and then click on Full Scan button at the lower right corner to begin full scanning on the device.

Finally, select all needed files, and then click Save button to store them on a safe place. However, the free edition of MiniTool Power Data Recovery can only recover 1GB data for free. If you want to recover more, you need to choose the personal edition or advance editions.

As we know, formatting will delete all data on this drive, thus the virus and the issue are gone as well. Therefore, you can try formatting your device to fix the files and folders become shortcuts issue. But, how to format drive to remove all the virus?

MiniTool Partition Wizard, a piece of free and professional partition management software developed by MiniTool Solution Ltd., is recommended here. The steps are:

Step 1. Download MiniTool Partition Wizard, and then install it on computer according to prompts.

Step 2. Launch this professional partition management software, then select the partition which needs formatting and choose Format Partition feature from the left panel.

Step 3. Set partition label, file system and cluster size for the selected partition and click on OK button.

Bottom Line

After seeing the above 4 solutions, I guess you are now familiar with how to recover files or folders infected by a virus and convert shortcut file to original file. You can choose a suitable solution stated above to fix your folders turned into shortcuts issue in Windows 7/8/10, depending on your requirements.

If you have another solution to fix the files and folders become shortcuts issue, welcome to type your solution in the comment section, thanks! If you have any question about using MiniTool software, you can directly contact us via [email protected]. We will solve it as soon as possible.